


Exposure Therapy

by undigniFiend



Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons), Trollhunters - Daniel Kraus & Guillermo del Toro
Genre: Dream Magic, Eldritch!Gunmar, Gunmar didn't realize what he signed up for but he regrets nothing, Gunmar the Ominously Supportive, Lucid dreams, M/M, Purple Prose, Soft Oral Vore, Waltolomew "Mad With Power Even In Positions Where No One Should Feel Powerful" Stricklander, Willing, driving a predator crazy from inside, non-fatal, scary affection, slow and gratuitous teasing, taking Gunmar's mind-hack powers to even more ridiculous extremes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:55:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23264299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undigniFiend/pseuds/undigniFiend
Summary: "I have room for you."
Relationships: Gunmar/Walter Strickler | Stricklander
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	Exposure Therapy

Strickler realized he was dreaming.

This came as a profound relief, as he had been in no mood to deal with any more stress than the waking world already gave him. His subconscious had some nerve, begrudging him any time he took to rest.

Normally in his dreams, his form was a constantly shifting amalgamation of features between his changeling form and his human guise, entirely dependent on the fickle whims of his subconscious. Being trapped completely in human form was a fairly common nightmare among changelings, despite its irrationality. So too, the nightmare of getting eaten by a troll, though at least that fear was rational. Unfortunately. But as long as he was going to fear something, Strickler preferred to have a good reason for it. He didn't jump at shadows like some human.

The teeth on his leg, and the stone body attached to them evaporated with a thought, as insubstantial as a cobweb's shadow, and the relief that followed was like giving his wings a good stretch before flight.

Threat soundly removed, Strickler could almost feel his actual body lying in the bedding. He could smell the age of it, and the musk of its owner, and felt the heat of Gunmar's living stone partially curled around him as he slept. Strickler wondered briefly what the Underlord dreamed of before some instinctive cue in his body told him he was on the verge of waking up.

Still tired from restless dreams, and unwilling to wake up just yet, Strickler fell back on an old trick, reaching out and focusing on the sensation of holding something in his hand. He was not certain of its identity yet, his subconscious would fill that in. All he had to do was make it feel solid; an anchor to pull him back into the dream.

A flare of pale blue emerged from the dark, startlingly close, and sharpened into a familiar, cold iris. Gunmar's face loomed before and above him. His horns swept out and curved overhead, and everything from his massive shoulders down materialized as living shadow from out of the dark, crouched on all fours, his etchings faintly glowing.

Strickler realized he was holding onto one of the warlord's tusks, and promptly let go. Lucidity did not bring complete control, and he had doubts as to how far his subconscious would accept the idea of him being able to direct even an illusion of Gunmar the Black - or to at least stop him from retaliating for grabbing his face like that. But no matter what happened here, it was still a dream, and Strickler would be fine.

The thought almost left him giddy enough to knock him back to full consciousness.

"Steady," Gunmar's dream-voice was shadow, smoke, and the resonance of deep labyrinths, and Strickler had to remind himself to breathe when Gunmar's cold-bright gaze seemed to look through his face to the mind behind it. It was normal to feel like a target under the Underlord's attention, but something about his presence here magnified the effect. This, too, was his kingdom.

Already the surroundings changed from a nebulous mix of an office Strickler once had and a cavern system he had never been to. A hilly forest emerged, shining with frost and broken by outcrops of dark shale. The bare branches more resembled lightning turned to stone, all shrouded in mist tinged silver by moonlight. Mountains loomed beyond, breaking up his sense of the horizon. Strickler could hear the hush of snow-melt rapids in the distance, could smell the water-sprayed moss on the boulders there, and some part of him knew the river would be clear enough to see through to its sandy bed - free of tannins or trash or any sign of human civilization. Some chilly instinct identified this as from a memory, but it didn't feel like one of his own.

Gunmar moved, and Strickler's attention snapped back to him. The Underlord lowered his head, putting his face in closer reach, granting permission. "Ground yourself if you must."

Strickler half-scoffed at that before he could stop himself, surprised and mildly impressed by the implication in Gunmar's choice of words. "You're not even going to pretend it's not a dream?" he wondered aloud, recalling a few separate incidents where his subconscious mind had tricked him out of lucidity and back into another nightmare. That it chose to manifest as someone as predatory and dangerous as Gunmar would only serve to keep Strickler on guard, and the confidence in that thought made him bold enough to smirk. It was both a strange kindness and a cruelty, and it reminded Strickler of the Skullcrusher, himself. This, he could work with.

"If you want pretense, you'll have to earn it," Gunmar said dismissively, as if he didn't expect Strickler to succeed. For an apparition from his subconscious, it did a fairly good impression of the warlord's way of challenging him.

Lucid dreaming was a difficult balancing act, after all. As long as he focused on how not-real this was, he risked dulling his dream-senses and waking up. And if he started taking the dream too seriously, he could forget he was dreaming and lose control. Controlling the chaos of one's own subconscious, even for a moment, required discipline and willpower - two things Gunmar prized in his agents and warriors.

Strickler reached up, taking up Gunmar's invitation, and running the tips of his fingers along the warlord's jaw, allowing touch to make the apparition more real.

"What are we pretending, then?" Strickler asked. "You have something planned?"

Gunmar rumbled a quiet, pensive sound, before tilting his head and idly catching Strickler's hand in his warm mouth. "Exposure therapy," he murmured, tongue flicking against Strickler's hand as he spoke, deep voice humming through his arm.

Strickler privately congratulated himself on not yelping as he drew his hand back to safety, and Gunmar licked his upper lip as if chasing the changeling's flavor. A brief flash of a curled tongue over teeth captured his attention, and for a moment, Strickler hoped Gunmar would do it again.

"Isn't that what the fleshlings call it?" Gunmar's expression remained calculating, but his tone was edged with an annoyed growl. "They likely stole and perverted that from us, too." Banishing one's fear through confronting it was one of the rare things Gumm-Gumms and humans might have had in common, though the human version tended to be far more gentle. Or at least, gentle at all.

The too-real heat of Gunmar's mouth lingered on Strickler's hand. "You want to eat me," he realized, somewhere between nervous at the prospect and annoyed that his subconscious couldn't seem to conjure up something pleasant for once.

Gunmar gave him an unimpressed blink. "This is a dream, Stricklander," he said patiently. "It is not meant to harm you, and scaring you awake would disappoint both of us."

"Both of us," Strickler echoed, puzzled and irritated with what seemed a blatant lie. How was getting eaten supposed to _not_ terrify and humiliate him? What part of escaping _that_ was supposed to be disappointing? "The last time a troll tried to chew me up here, I turned them into a little puff of smoke," he warned, unwilling to believe his own subconscious would be scattered enough to forget that already. "The only disappointment was that I hadn't done so sooner. Really, for a figment of my subconscious, I had hoped you'd at least demonstrate some creativity if you're going to try tricking me into something stupid. This is just shoddy workmanship..."

The real Gunmar might have pancaked him against the ground for that, and this apparition seemed to be considering it. His arm twitched, as if checking the impulse. "A fair point," he said at length, sounding mildly surprised, himself. "Training your will against mine would be a futile first lesson." Arrogant as those words were, they were spoken as a plain, if oddly inconvenient fact. "It won't be any fun without the right introduction, without first demonstrating the reward."

Strickler's eyes narrowed, trying to follow any semblance of logic in his subconscious' thinking. It seemed to be approaching some important point sideways. "Your will against mine? We're the same person. And don't change the subject."

For a moment, there was an odd, honest delight in the curve of Gunmar's lips. It vanished. "Rest assured, I won't chew," Gunmar said, and though the troll king remained perfectly still, Strickler had the sense of being circled, somehow. Like feeling the presence of a big shark glide by in the dark; silent, unseen, and too-near. "And you can't dismiss _me_ in a 'puff of smoke'. No matter what I chose to do, there is nothing you can do to fight it, lucid or not. We both already know this, so it would make for a dull lesson. For now, I make this promise: No harm to you will manifest here, whether by your mind or mine."

Realization and terrible certainty nearly snapped Strickler awake. "Oh." This wasn't some figment of his subconscious. This was Gunmar Himself paying a Visit. Strickler held up his hands in another grounding trick, staring at them, trying to count the shifting fingers, and trying not to think of how displeased his king would be if he woke up too soon. The next Visit could be a punishment, full of particularly creative tortures, and despite Gunmar's implication that Strickler could just wake up if he wanted to escape, he knew Gunmar could trap his prey for as long as he liked.

Gunmar leaned down again, eclipsing Strickler's vision with his sheer size, and touching Strickler's forehead with the ridge of his nose. Some power within that contact made the dream solid again, and he could feel his heartbeat ease under the weight of a foreign impulse. For a moment, Strickler wondered if this was what Decimaar's Touch felt like, but that same impulse brushed the thought aside for later, utterly calm and inevitable. "Steady," Gunmar murmured, low, throaty, and hypnotically soothing. "You think me so petty? I will not be angry if you chose to awaken, and I will never use a Visit to punish you. Nor is this a punishment, but an offer that you may refuse if you wish."

He pulled back slightly, so they could properly meet eyes. "Surrender to me, Stricklander, and I will show you a path to controlling the chaos that steals your rest."

The thought of possibly being eaten by Gunmar was not new,but being eaten by him with the certainty that there would be no pain or death? Something about that subtraction transformed the act, and turned Gunmar's ever-present, ever-dangerous hunger into something instructive and useful in this context; a dramatic experience to recall when under future imaginary threats, and therefore a possible anchor to remind him of the control that was so easy to forget was always his.

Knowingly walking into danger with the certainty of being immune to it was a rare yet addictive thrill. Strickler's eyes tracked down Gunmar's cavernous chest, and lingered on the dark, toned landscape of his stomach. He wondered how it would feel to be surrounded, guarded, and carried by all of the Skullcrusher's impossible strength. He wondered if his whole body could possibly sate Gunmar's legendary appetite, or if the troll king would still crave more of him even after containing him entirely.

Since this was a dream, perhaps Strickler would make himself grow, to indulge Gunmar's preference for big meals, and feel the Underlord's satisfied sighs and rumbles all around him. Perhaps he'd challenge his king's stomach, filling him to capacity, making his belly strain on the edge of what it could hold, and listen to him pant and groan on the edge of _too much_. Or perhaps he'd maintain a size that was _almost enough_ , and see if he could tease Gunmar into desperate, wild snarling and demands for more weight, more movement, more _him_? From this perspective, it almost seemed a position of power.

Being wanted so viscerally was an addictive thrill, too.

Tight, hot, sinking...

Gunmar cleared his throat, as if trying to dislodge something that had stuck at an odd angle. The sound resonated through Strickler's body, and suddenly he was standing before Gunmar in the forest again. The Underlord's laugh sounded pleasantly surprised.

"You are getting ahead of yourself," Gunmar said, and the good humor almost made his tone sound fond. He rolled one powerful shoulder as if loosening it, warming up. "For this to be of greater use to you, it must begin as it usually does. But keep in mind, it will not end that way. I'll give you a head start..."

"Do you spy on my dreams often?"Strickler asked, simultaneously icy and resigned.

"Only when they smell tempting enough." Still on all fours, Gunmar paced around him in a lazy circle, not entirely succeeding in disguising his anticipation. Moonlight outlined his fluid motions, silver on black and shifting blue patterns. "Banishment prevented me from hunting on the Surface, but it never stopped me from hunting in Older ways. And prey-dreams leave tracks."

Strickler frowned, wondering for a moment whether that terrible chill was his own body's fear response or just Gunmar being dramatic and showing off his mastery of the dreamscape again. He took a deep breath, reminding himself that he was not one of those unlucky humans or trolls, and feeling oddly privileged all over again to be on the good side of the same nightmare that stalked so many others.

Gunmar was every bit a troll, but he was also every bit something else. Born tribeless, and driven by an unnatural hunger that he was perhaps doomed to never sate. Even during the feasts Strickler had witnessed, the Underlord seemed quietly vexed, rubbing his full stomach and frowning like he could not figure out what he was still craving. Or perhaps he knew after all, and it was not among the dead.

"Shall I flee?" Strickler asked. It seemed absurd. Of course Gunmar was going to catch him, and Strickler could admit he wanted to be caught. What was the point?

Gunmar studied him for a moment, his eye betraying something that might have passed for pity if it didn't also look like a frightening shade of pleased. "Are you a tame sacrifice, Stricklander?" he asked, deceptively soft. "Or are you going to make me show you how hungry I am?"

Strickler's breath hitched, caught between a rising, tender warmth, and mild outrage at himself for not seeing the appeal sooner.

Gunmar's pale gaze flicked toward the surrounding trees, casually dismissive. Then he lowered his horns and arched his upper back, and a small voice in Strickler's mind griped at how unfair it was that Gunmar could make such a threatening posture so fascinating to watch. "Run, Impure," the Underlord growled, his teeth and eye the brightest points in the night. "When I catch you, I'm going to put you where you belong."

A not-quite-jaded part of Strickler still bristled at the insult, and the pleasant warmth sharpened into an uncomfortable heat high in his chest. He narrowed his eyes and lifted his chin. "For that, I'll _really_ make you work for it," he promised. Run, indeed. _Belong_ , indeed! The gall.

The nasty old brute wouldn't need literal tracks to find him, but that didn't mean Strickler had to give him any. His wings flared and snapped down in time with a practiced leap into the night air. Wheeling on the currents, he didn't bother to look back, soaring down to the valley below, and weighing the pros and cons of choice hiding spots in the landscape.

Strickler found the river and alighted on the far side of it, among boulders, ferns, and towering pines. The river had slowed at this point; no longer rapids, but not quite smooth as glass, either. The reflection of the moon still wavered in the current. Let Gunmar make of that what he would. If he knew or cared about human superstitions of running water keeping evil monsters at bay, then good. He deserved a little snub in return for that 'Impure' comment. Really, what sort of idiot leader just came out and said he thinks his most devoted followers deserve nothing better than to end up in his stomach? If it was a joke (Gunmar _did_ tend to deadpan) it was in vile taste.

Just because he was going in there anyway didn't mean Gunmar had to rub it in. Strickler was just humoring him at this point. He could wake up any time he liked. Right as Gunmar would be about to shove him into his oversized maw. How was _that_ for treacherous?

Those ideas of teasing Gunmar from inside sounded fun at first, but now recalling them just made Strickler feel stupid. Gunmar would probably roll his eye and grumble at him to 'stop squirming,' anyway. Ingrate.

Folding his wings, he ducked down among the ferns and turned his eyes back uphill, scanning for any sign of his pursuer among the trees and stones. In the context of a dream, he knew this was somewhat foolish. Gunmar could truly be anywhere, no matter how far he had flown. But if Strickler was going to be taken off guard, he hoped it would not be from an obvious direction.

Just as he was beginning to consider the likelihood that Gunmar might be crouching right behind him, the tips of a pair of wide-set, black horns rose out of the river. Gunmar strode out, steam rising off his living stone in the night, catching moonlight and wreathing him in ethereal tendrils like smoke from a snuffed candle. He barely disturbed the surface, and made no sound as he walked onto the shore, his single eye shining like a ghostly star.

The light from his own eyes would give him away. Strickler ducked behind a pine trunk, putting his back to it, and focusing on his hearing to tell him where Gunmar was.

Still no sound but the river's subtle current and the rustle of pine needles when the wind picked up. When Strickler dared to peek, Gunmar was gone.

A sigh reverberated from every direction at once, such that Strickler couldn't tell whether it was a voice, the wind changing, or the surfacing of some vast and distant force. His skin prickled along his arms and the back of his neck.

"Nomad." Gunmar's voice was nearly a whisper in his ear, yet his subtle growl echoed off the surrounding mountains. "No hearth. No roots. Armed against that for which you long, in a world that denies it to you."

Melodramatic twit. "Stop thwarting physics and come get me already!" Strickler snarled.

"I am an affront to physics," Gunmar's omnipresent voice murmured back, brimming with fierce pride. "I am the first of my line. Motherless, fatherless. Born an abomination in the eyes of a world that did its best to shut me out." Strickler could feel his Underlord's smile as if the teeth were closing on the back of his neck. "Like you Impures, I know that bittersweet ache. I know the hunger to make that room for ourselves. Trust me, Stricklander..."

Massive stone arms encircled Strickler from behind, materializing from the shadow of the tree. Gunmar nuzzled his upper back, hot breath curling along his spine and cloaking his shoulders. As he lifted the changeling high off the ground, supporting him against his broad chest, the Underlord growled, soft as velvet, "I have room for you."

"Oh - " For a moment, Strickler wondered if they had been speaking in the Old Tongue all this time; Gunmar had turned the entire Structure of the concept of 'belong' and revealed a Facet so beautiful, he could feel tears gathering in his sleeping eyes.

This wasn't about satisfying a simple appetite. Nor truly about guiding Strickler in the intricacies of dream-magic. This was Gunmar's own twisted, strange attempt to demonstrate understanding, gratitude, and acceptance for his devotion and trust. A reassurance that the world Gunmar fought to shape would be a home for Strickler and his kind, too. A promise that they did not follow him in vain. That they had someone unfathomably powerful not just at their backs, but on their side.

A wish read out of his own heart.

Strickler could see it so clearly now, a part of him had to wonder if this was more of Gunmar's mind-magic at work. Hypnotizing his prey like an angler-fish with her light. Even without Decimaar, Gunmar was a master hunter, gifted at crafting lures from the weaknesses he could smell on a person. A demon with too vital an offer to refuse. But even knowing this, Strickler wanted this beautiful vision too much to care if he was simply the next victim after all. It was not a bad illusion to die for.

"So much for making you work for it," Strickler muttered, a little dazed.

He could feel Gunmar's lips curve into a grin against his back, and gasped when pointed fangs raised little trails of heat along his skin; a gentle mockery of a bite. "Mmm... I'll have to give you more practice." Gunmar huffed a gust of hot air, and his broad, wet tongue smoothed over the sensitized grazes.

Strickler hissed at the initial sting, and sighed into it, back curving, instinctively exposing his throat. Such an instinct in changelings was twofold, and he felt both sides keenly; one, a trollish gesture of submission. The other, a numbing death-freeze ironed into countless generations of humans who had come to understand that docile prey were not as fun to torment.

Gunmar pressed his nose into the juncture where shoulder met neck, and the growl resonating from his chest vibrated through Strickler's entire skeleton, mixed with a sharp, longing sigh. "You taste like _everything I want..._ " The words ended on a rolling snarl in the Old Tongue, their Facets primal and transcendent. Some new tension entered the muscles cradling Strickler close, and Gunmar's hooded eye seemed brighter than usual when Strickler tilted to see. The Underlord looked almost as breathless as he sounded, faint steam curling like river-mist from his mouth. "Will you go head-first or feet first?"

An odd courtesy. It didn't sound quite routine, but Strickler had to wonder if this was some sort of inside-joke to the warlord; a rare, honest version of a cruel ultimatum he might have just as easily given his victims, both dreaming and awake. Did they feel like victims at the time, or had Gunmar bewitched them into the idea, too? "Can't you read my mind?" he asked, uncertain.

"I want to hear you speak." Gunmar nuzzled him again as if he couldn't get enough of his scent, and Strickler was struck by the sensation that the Underlord was holding himself on a tight leash. Gunmar the Black had no need to hold back, or ask, or respect anyone's preference for anything.

Except when it came to those who were his to fight for.

The constant whiplash would make him dizzy if it kept up too long. Strickler wondered if Gunmar was training his will already, despite his earlier assertion of its futility. Was he allowing just enough room for Strickler's natural skepticism to cast doubt against a possible danger, a pretty lie? Or was this back-and-forth all in Strickler's head after all? Either way, he couldn't pass up the opportunity to tease, rubbing the other side of Gunmar's jaw as he nuzzled back. "Astounding. Were you always such a sap?"

"You'll get no apology from me," Gunmar murmured, distracted. He traced the back of Strickler's ear with the tip of his tongue. "Unless you ask nicely. But tell me which way you want in, while you're at it. I've been patient..."

Strickler took a slow breath, easing his heartbeat so it wouldn't throw him out of sleep. "Would it please you to let me watch, my king?"

Gunmar chuffed, as much a primal, animal sound as a surprised laugh. He turned, leaving the shadows of the forest and resting Strickler on top of a boulder that made it up to his chest. Before Strickler could arrange himself, Gunmar leaned in fast and close.

"Gunmar, what - !"

He bowled Strickler over backwards with a giant smooch.

Gunmar's lips covered everything from Strickler's nose to his chin, and the troll's large tusks flanked his face, overwhelming his periphery. He was warm, firm, and tasted like iron and smoke. Strickler's shin tilted and bumped Gunmar's shoulder as he tried to get his bearings, the side of his calf brushing the side of Gunmar's throat, and it hit him all over again just how massive Gunmar was. A deep thrum built in the Underlord's chest, and when he pulled back, he looked as flushed as Strickler felt.

"You asked very nicely," he growled by way of explanation, teeth flashing. Had he both his eyes, they might have briefly crossed as he ran his tongue along his lip again. "Mm, now come here..."

Strickler had expected to be crammed into tight, hot darkness, so he almost flinched. Instead, Gunmar swept a hand under his legs, cupping his calves together, and lifting them smoothly into an angle he could work with. His jaws opened, fangs dripping. Gunmar's tongue extended over his lower row of teeth to shield Strickler as much as guide him into the back of his throat.

Strickler had expected the Underlord to keep his mouth wide open as a silent taunt, a constant display of where Strickler was going. Or to feel a horrific tension between those deadly jaws; a subtle promise that he could bite at any time. Instead, Gunmar's tongue and throat seemed to relax around his legs the deeper they went, enfolding him in slick heat, everything closing around him as if to draw all the flavor from his skin. The textures of his maw were as varied as they were intense; soft, inner cheek, the rasp of his tongue when it drew against his skin, the rigid hard palate before his knees bumped the soft tissue just above his throat, the occasional graze of fangs along the tops of his thighs.

A quiet huff and a dazed blue eye preceded the first careful swallow, as if even now, Gunmar still held himself by an invisible leash. The back of Gunmar's tongue swelled toward his soft palate, and his throat fluttered and tightened before a strong, wet surge tugged Strickler deeper, constricting him up to his hips, and leaving them cradled between the Underlord's tusks. A shudder coursed down Gunmar's back, as if his body didn't know what to do with all the restless energy it withheld. Strickler could see that blue eye try its best to focus on his face. Just what in the world was this doing to him?

It was like watching something heavy teeter on the edge of a high shelf, practically begging for one little nudge. He couldn't be hurt here, after all... In a fit of daring, Strickler pushed up from the boulder, catching the crown of Gunmar's horns and curling to look down at his eye. "You really are a sap," he accused. "I thought you were going to show me how hungry you are."

Gunmar's eye flared, and a guttural rumble vibrated around Strickler's legs. The Underlord's voice echoed and tangled in Strickler's mind in a brief, confused burst of thoughts:

_Oh no..._

_I knew I liked you._

_How dare you._

_Insolence._

_Inside, now._

_Belong with me._

_Devious brat._

_Welcome home._

Gunmar tilted his head back, granting a smoother path down, and growled around a harsh gulp that almost knocked the breath out of Strickler's lungs. Amid more heavy gulps, he adjusted his jaws to give Strickler's shoulders room, and Strickler laughed on his way through them.

He was probably the first to ever do so.

Gunmar's tongue curled around the back of Strickler's head, guiding the last of him between sharp teeth before they closed. Strickler could feel the crown of his head disappear over the dip at the back of Gunmar's tongue just before the final, deafening swallow.

The path down was far more chaotic than Strickler expected. The suffocating heat and darkness seemed to struggle even as it flowed around him, working him deeper. It rippled, squeezed, and muffled pounding heartbeats and his own futile, instinctive attempts to move. He _felt_ more than heard Gunmar's bone-deep groan as the troll king struggled to relax and soothe his chest enough to let his meal fit through.

An exceptionally tight ring of muscle had been working its way up his body, and by the time it reached Strickler's waist, he knew what it was. He bent his legs, trying to brace his knees against the ceiling of Gunmar's stomach in an attempt to get some leverage, twisting and flexing as much of his body as the cramped space would allow.

He must have done something right, because with a great sigh of relief all around him, something seemed to give. He poured through the ring, his body naturally curling to fit and fill the most secure cave he'd ever been in.

But 'secure' did not do it justice, Strickler realized, feeling his body settle, and the body all around him relax. He was entirely inside the Skullcrusher. Nothing could touch him, and no one could reach him without Gunmar allowing it. Heat chased away the last lingering chill from outside. Soft, slick swells conformed to his shape, supporting and adjusting him with their movements, as if they could tuck him even deeper. Pressure from outside moved in an easy circle against his back as Gunmar rubbed his belly.

"Oh, I've _ached_ to hold you like this..." From in here, Gunmar's voice was more than sound, low and vibrating through Strickler's cells, teasing at rewriting the rhythm of his heart.

Strickler rubbed back, gently turning and pressing with his whole body in what he hoped would be an effective expression of his own approval. The little hitch in Gunmar's breath would have been a lovely enough reward even without the all-encompassing, resonant thrum that followed. Strickler almost laughed again when he felt Gunmar's hands press harder in a naked attempt to absorb more feeling from the internal massages.

"Hm, it's a bit roomier in here than I imagined," Strickler said, feigning casual. "Are you still hungry, my king? Perhaps I can do something about - ?"

"Yes," Gunmar interrupted with a savage hiss. His powerful body adjusted slightly, as if he were leaning over his stomach, focusing on it. "Now."

Who knew this old monster could be so good for his ego? Strickler focused, imagining his whole body growing, slowly stretching out the space around him. By inches.

Gunmar seemed to realize what he was doing. "Don't be gentle on my account," he demanded, still groping his belly as if he could feel out the exact way Strickler was oriented. "Keep going."

"Patience, I didn't stop," Strickler chided, grinning. Demands from Gunmar were a fact of life, and so too was punishment for anyone stupid enough to ignore them. But what could Gunmar do to him now? Eat him? Strickler nearly laughed again, appeasing his king with a bigger, rolling stretch that must have hit a sweet spot or two judging by the way Gunmar shuddered and melted all around him. Then he tucked back in and held still as he continued his slow growth.

The outrage in Gunmar's snarl was simultaneously horrifying and delicious. " _Stricklander...!_ " Everything around Strickler rumbled and tightened, squeezing as if trying to get the illusion of a bigger meal.

Strickler grunted, adjusting his limbs as he tried to fight off the early compression. "Gunmar, will you - ! Now just - ! I'll stop if you don't," he warned.

Gunmar eased off with an impatient huff and a sharp growl. "Treachery," he grumbled. "I'm still so hungry for you, I'm drooling! Hurry up before I go hunting and stuff every fleshling dreamer I can find in there with you!"

Gunmar would make good on that threat. And Strickler didn't fancy being buried in a cramped pile of crying people in various states of injury. "Spoiled, pushy brute," he grumbled back before giving in. He grew past the point he expected to have to stop, Gunmar's stomach stretching around him until the tension throughout the lining held Strickler in a tight ball. "There. Still hungry?"

Everything tilted as Gunmar eased himself onto all fours, belly hanging, panting from the extra space that had been restricted from his big lungs. Curled on his back, Strickler marveled at the intimacy of listening to the Skullcrusher's labored breaths, and the wild thundering of his heart, from inside. The outside pressure of one hand braced against Strickler's flank. "Move," Gunmar urged. "Like you did before."

What started out as an awkward, slow shimmy in too-tight confines gradually developed into a more confident, twisting, rolling dance as all of the tension drained from Gunmar's body. That deep, warm thrum returned, and Gunmar lazily curled a little more around his stuffed belly, savoring the weight and motions inside, and rubbing back. His breath gradually evened out, and Strickler had to wonder what would happen if he were to actually succeed in lulling Gunmar to sleep from within a dream.

He had to wonder if Gunmar would lull him to sleep, in turn. Being held so close, wrapped up in darkness and rumbling and warmth, shielded on all sides...

"I just had a terrible thought," Gunmar murmured sleepily, drawing Strickler back. "All the Trollhunter has to do to stop me, is find some spell or enchantment that would allow us to do this while awake. I'd never get anything done."

Strickler hummed. " _You_ might not, but I - "

"You'd be in there."

"What, all the time?"

"If you can move like that, yes. You'd leave me no choice."

A strange compliment. But Strickler knew Gunmar's ambitions were too large to be delayed by something so simple as a full belly. He'd find a way to get _all_ of what he wanted. Satisfying only one of his many hungers wouldn't silence the rest of them, and he would need Strickler on the field in order to achieve those goals. But he could be as dramatic as he liked, as long as he kept rubbing Strickler's back like that. "Doesn't sound like much of a social life," Strickler said instead.

"We can arrange visits."

Strickler smiled at a terrible thought of his own. Concentrating, he imagined the glow of Heartstone energy building in his chest, not daring to let it pass through his skin just yet. He pictured being a conduit to the largest Heartstone in existence, tapping into an infinite supply of radiant, life-giving energy.

He brushed both hands against the stomach-lining in front of him, imagining the arc of Gunmar's spine overhead, and carefully lining his hands up. "But wouldn't you still be hungry for something else?" he asked, keeping his voice carefully neutral.

He felt one of Gunmar's arms tuck around him in a lazy hug, so gentle it caught him off guard. "Can't think of anything," Gunmar murmured, unsuspecting. Strickler bit his lip.

And channeled a hot pulse of glowing bliss up through Gunmar's body.

Gunmar snapped upright with a wild snarl. "What have you done to me?!"

Strickler's long, complicated, dangerous life flashed before his eyes.

"Do that _again!_ "

The whiplash stunned him almost a moment too long. He could feel Gunmar's lungs gathering for another urgent demand or threat. Before he could voice it, Strickler opened the floodgates holding back an impossible tide, and unleashed Heartstone energy directly through all of Gunmar's stomach lining.

Gunmar roared so hard Strickler's teeth rattled. He could feel a pull on the energy he channeled, as if he could barely give it fast enough, as if every one of Gunmar's cells were fighting for their fill, as if an ocean wouldn't quench them. The noises Gunmar made sounded alive in a way he never had before, as if Heartstone made him more living troll than nightmare vision. As if, if only he could get enough, he might finally be made whole.

Strickler pressed his hands into the lining again, moving, trying to promise something he didn't know how to voice.

Perhaps Gunmar understood anyway. Perhaps any motion against his over-sensitized lining proved to be too much. Either way, Strickler could feel the moment Gunmar lost his balance. He could just picture Gunmar's eye rolling back before he tipped and crashed.

The landing jarred Strickler awake.

Next to him in the bedding, Gunmar's chest heaved, flat on his back and staring at the cave ceiling. Gunmar rolled onto his side, propped up on an elbow, towering above Strickler, and staring down at him as if he wanted to devour him alive for real. One stony hand came up and roughly wiped the drool from his chin.

"Breakfast." Despite the finality and determination in the Underlord's tone, it was almost a gasp. "All of it." He lunged off the bedding and barreled toward the passage leading to the open caverns.

Strickler didn't bother to hide his smile as he sat up. It was rare (try once-in-a-century) that Gunmar's coherence ever wavered. And the night had just begun.


End file.
